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City News In 250 Words: Friday 2 September

Shameless celebrates 100, marijuana in hospitals and a school to be staffed by ex-soldiers

Published on September 2nd 2011.

MANCHESTER TV DRAMA, Shameless celebrates its 100th episode next month. The Wythenshawe and Salford-based hit series first burst onto our screens in 2004, attracting over 4.5 million viewers. Creator Paul Abbott has announced that a one-off episode will be filmed to landmark the special occasion, bringing back some old faces.

FOR THE FIRST TIME in history, hospital doctors are to treat patients with marijuana. Already available on prescription since the summer of 2010 to treat multiple sclerosis, the drug is now undergoing a ‘trial’ at Greater Manchester hospitals for terminally ill cancer patients. Also believed to numb muscular pain, the drug will be sprayed under the tongue up to ten times a day without getting patients ‘high’ and if successful, ‘Savitex’ could extend across the country.

TWO SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLD MAPLIN ELECTRONIC LOOTERS have been arrested and locked up for six months. A boy of the same age has walked free, after trying to smash into the display window of St Anne’s Square’s Swarvoski. He admitted to joining in on the chaos, which he heard about via an email on his Blackberry.

GREATER MANCHESTER PLANS TO OPEN A ‘PHOENIX SCHOOL’, an inner city school staffed completely by ex-soldiers. Since the riots took place on the evening of August 8, Manchester locals are supporting the idea in hope that it will discipline children and reduce Manchester’s gang crime. Former armed forces Chief Lord Guthrie devised the plan, and aims to locate the first school in Oldham.

This week in 1821: The dislike felt for banknotes issued by local banks, led to their refusal by many of Manchester’s principal inhabitants.